‘We’re going to fight’: Can Israel’s film industry survive boycotts and the Netanyahu government?

Haaretz Podcast

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From the international success of “Fauda” to Academy Award nominations and prestigious festival awards, the Israeli film and television industry was at a high point before the October 7 attacks.

Throughout the two-year Gaza war, the industry has struggled as international funding and festival invitations dried up, and Hollywood A-listers circulated petitions to boycott any association with the Israeli industry. Domestically, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been hostile, especially when infuriated by films they view as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Assaf Amir, chairman of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to talk about the threat by Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s extreme reaction to the fact that the film winning this year’s Academy for Israel’s Best Picture was “The Sea” – about a Palestinian boy’s journey from the West Bank to Tel Aviv – which is now poised for submission in the Best Foreign Language film category at the Oscars.

As a result, Zohar said he will defund the Academy prize and set up an alternative government award ceremony to choose a different Best Picture. Amir said on the podcast that he was unimpressed by the threat.

“We'll see who submits their films to his prize and who he chooses to decide which of the films should win,” Amir said.

As for the Hollywood boycotts, Amir said he would point to Israel’s Best Picture this year and ask the professionals signing the petitions where they stand on it.

“Will they watch this Arabic-language film that was made by an Israeli and a Palestinian about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank trying to go to Tel Aviv – or would they boycott it? I think that's the question they should ask themselves, and I'm wondering what the answer is – because I would definitely urge them to watch this film.”

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